To:V. A. KARPINSKY

Written:Written on March 25, 1917Published:First published in full in 1930 inLenin Miscellany XIII.

      Sent from Zurich to Geneva.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages303-305.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

DearComrade,

Ihave sent you through Inessa copies of my two letters toPravda. I hope you have done what I asked, and today (Sunday) or
tomorrow have sent them back to meby express.

AfterTuesday (I am lecturing here on Tuesday evening) I will send you
a copy of letter
				No. 3.[1]Then, I think, it will be easy for us tocome to an agreementabout tactics.

Lunacharskyhas written to me proposing a “conference”.  I have
replied: I am agreeable to having a talk with you (Lunacharsky)
			     personally.[2](He will be coming to Zurich.)  I am agreeable to a conference, however,onlyon condition that the workers are warnedagainstthe
waverings of Chkheidze. He (Lunacharsky)has said nothing.

Soit means that we shall confine ourselves to apersonaltalk.

Chkheidzeis obviouslywobbling: cf.Le Tempsof
March 22praisesChkheidze, while on March 24 itabuseshim.

Thepicture is clear!!

ThereforeI am a little afraid that you have been in too much of a
hurry to draw up a general
resolution[5](I have sent it toPravdatoday, together with
my article, addressed to Herrn Fürstenberg, Boulevard Hotel,Kristiania. You can send articles there, with a note that the
articles are forPravda, and that I supplied the address; as to
articles on questions ofprinciple, it would be useful for us to
reach preliminary agreement).

Pravda, probably,needsarticles. At any rate I am
writing, andI am advising all friends to write.

Ifear that you are too much in a hurry also to unite with theVperyodgroup.

Inyour resolution the ending is good (I had time only to look through
itrapidly: it had to go off), but the beginning (about democracy
in general) seemed to me very bad.

Asregards unity withVperyod. I sent a telegram to
Scandinavia to the members of our Party who are leaving:

“Notretactique: méfiance absolue, aucun soutien nouveau
gouvernement, Kerensky surtout soupçonnons, armement proletariat
seule garantie, élection immédiate douma de Petrogradaucun rapprochement autres
			    partis.”[3]

Thelast isconditio sine qua non.

Wedon’t trust Chkheidze.

Ourdeputies and Kamenev arealreadyin Petersburg,orwill be there in a few days. There is aCentral
Committeein Petersburg (Frankfurter Zeitungprinted extracts
from its manifesto,lovely!),Pravdaexists. We are for
preservation ofthispartyabsolutely, against all
fusions with the Organising Committee.

(Probablythere isnoO.C. in Petersburg, sinceFrankfurter ZeitungandVossische Zeitunggave a detailed
account of themanifestoof Chkheidze and Co. of
March 16,[6]and there isnot a wordabout the O.C. there.)

Itis precisely for the elections to the Constituent Assembly (or for
the overthrow of the government of Guchkov and Milyukov) that wemust
havea separate party, ours, which has in my opinioncompletelyjustified itself during the years 1914–17.

Thatmeans? Do the Vperyodists want;honestlyto join this
party?

Theydon’t want to? I won’t agree to “concessions” and
“bargaining”.

Havea talk with them,as man to manandmore than
once, and drop me a line, so that I have your reply by Tuesday (or at
latest Wednesday morning).

Willyou undertake to type in two copies (or in one copy) my
			      manuscript[4]of 500 pages (written on octavo),for payment not less than last
time? I would then publish it at once in Petersburg.

Youwill oblige me greatly!

Allthe best.

Yours,Lenin

P.S.Lyudmila hasleftStockholm. Don’t use Stockholm as an
address!

P.P.S.Will you and Olga go to Russia, if there is an opportunity, and
when? Who else would go from Geneva?

[1]Seepresent edition, Vol. 23, pp. 320–32.—Ed.

[3]“Ourtactics: absolute distrust, no support for the new government,
suspect Kerensky above all, arming of the proletariat the only guarantee,
immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma,no rapprochement with other
parties.”—Ed.

[4]Referenceis to Lenin’sThe Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy
in the First Russian Revolution, 1905–1907(see present edition,
Vol. 13, pp. 217–431).—Ed.

[5]Thisrefers to the resolution adopted at a meeting of Russian and Swiss
internationalists on March 22, 1917.

[6]Manifestoof Chkheidze—an appeal by the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which was dominated by Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries. It called for support of the Provisional
Government.